


Brief Sojourn to the Center of the Earth

by LinkWorshiper



Series: Sit, Resist [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:34:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinkWorshiper/pseuds/LinkWorshiper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hurts to be the healthy one -- in a manner of speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brief Sojourn to the Center of the Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Thomas is obviously still weighing on my mind for a lot of reasons. Listening to a bunch of Laura Stevenson and the Cans got me thinking about taking the drabble prompt I wrote the other day a bit further. Grossly unedited, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

Jimmy's return to Downton was acknowledged with the same blind eye that Thomas's dark moods were. It was as if the problem no one wanted to talk about was taking care of itself by allowing it to be handled by a person no one particularly missed. If the price was an extra bed and an extra plate at mealtimes, those who felt guilty about the whole affair felt placated by permitting it. Jimmy was allowed to bunk in the same room as Thomas to keep him company for what most of them misconceived as a 'recovery period'. Jimmy agreed knowing it wasn't quite that simple.

With Jimmy's encouragement, Thomas slowly gathered the nerve to mingle with the rest of the staff when he could manage it, though it was obvious to very few of them that they still made him uncomfortable. “Sit, resist, fuck 'em,” Jimmy would mutter to Thomas when they sat next to each other in the servants' hall to eat; then he would give Thomas's hand a squeeze under the table and Thomas's heartbeat would shift from a tremor to a thump. Sometimes Jimmy would knock their knees together if he noticed Thomas's mood slipping in an effort to distract him; he spoke up for Thomas to the others much the same way Thomas once used to whenever Jimmy had found himself backed up against a wall. With the exception of Ms. Baxter and occasionally Anna, none of the other staff cared: they all still spoke about him as if he wasn't there, and Jimmy quickly developed a secret grudge about it.

Thomas and Jimmy did everything together, from shaving in the morning to reading in silence next to one another before bed. In the night, sometimes Thomas would suffer bad dreams, and in the privacy of their shared garret, Jimmy felt bold enough to climb into the same cot as the troubled underbutler. Clinging soothed the claustrophobic demons that crowded their skulls. By moonlight, they learned how to kiss when there weren't good words to explain it. Thomas was hard and strong and beautiful in Jimmy's arms; it gave them the feeling of the way it used to be.

Eventually, Jimmy had to take time to return to London. He had left all his affairs there in a complete wreckage, and though it pained him to admit he needed to go, he knew it could ruin what little he had established for himself if he continued to ignore it. He promised Thomas it would only be three days and then he'd be back – “To _stay_ ,” he emphasized in the middle of the kitchen, where the rest of the staff was sure to hear him; “Just this one last time, and then I won't leave you ever again.”

It took Jimmy five days to come back. He returned to find Thomas had holed himself back in his room. He was on the ground, leaning against one of the cots and chain smoking in a way Jimmy hadn't caught him at since their reunion. He was very noticeably stubbly and unkempt; the tobacco masked a rather ripe aroma that didn't match Thomas's usually dapper habits.

“I were afraid to do it by myself,” Thomas told Jimmy as the blond sat on the floor between their beds and took the cigarette that Thomas automatically offered him. He flicked his lighter for Jimmy as he leaned in for a spark, elaborating in a low mutter: “I had to hide the razors from meself. I buried both of 'em with tulips on the sill.”

Jimmy puffed at his cigarette in an effort to diffuse the spike in concern that the darkness had resurfaced in Thomas while he'd been away. His eyes flicked up to the potted flowers wreathed in dusky orange by the window and thought of the painful urges that were now nipping at their roots. “You did good,” he said simply, realizing how hard it must have been for Thomas to do even the everyday things most people took for granted. He had to admit he knew how it felt: he numbed most of his pains by cramming them into liquor bottles that never seemed to fully drain.

“Not really,” sighed Thomas, dropping his dying cigarette out in a half-finished cup of tea that sat, cold, at his side. He immediately reached for the packet to pull out another one. “It makes me angry feelin' like I've got to dress like I'm battin' at cricket just to take a bath.”

“Ain't no shame in that,” said Jimmy, who quietly thought about how he felt like he shouldn't be allowed to carry his own wallet lest he end up pouring most of the money into a pint glass by the time the day was out. “You do what you gotta, yeah?”

“I s'pose,” Thomas shrugged, flicking his fresh cigarette. He took a long, calming drag on it before continuing, “I just feel like me life's work is waitin' for a train that won't ever come. Chartin' distances while runnin' in place, liftin' bricks and buildin' nothin' at all.”

“You're hard on yourself,” said Jimmy, ashing his cigarette onto the rug. He carelessly tried to dust it away, though all he really ended up doing was working the black dust further into the threads.

But Thomas was unconvinced “What've I done worth noticin'?” he lamented, leaning his head back so that his chin pointed up towards the dorm's slanted ceiling. “No one notices anythin' about me unless it's to slag me off. If I'd've had my way, they still wouldn't've noticed. And if they did, they'd only be glad about it.”

“I would've noticed,” Jimmy said with a quiet resilience that he hoped marked his sincerity. His blue irises flicked up beneath drooping eyelids to catch the evening sunlight streaking down the length of Thomas's long throat. Subconsciously, he swallowed and licked his lips, his body trembling with all the things Thomas made him feel. He said in a low voice, “Me hands were untied 'cause of you, Thomas.”

In the dim gloaming, the wet band of light cutting through the whites of Thomas's eyes glimmered as his gaze fell abruptly upon Jimmy's face. Cigarette smoke danced around the angles of his face, filtering the orange sunlight in hazy curls across Thomas's cheeks as he took in the sight of Jimmy, who suddenly seemed more beautiful than he ever had. He thought he might crash through the floor with the weight of the discovery, and was only kept from falling by the unexpected proximity of Jimmy's mouth as it covered his.

Their lips moved against one another in a kiss that was somehow different than the quiet, consoling ones they usually shared beneath the cover of night. In their shared vulnerability, it was as if they had found the courage to have a conversation regarding the things neither of them knew how to articulate about their bond – things that weren't new or unexpected, but somehow transcended any other form of description.

“But Jimmy,” Thomas murmured as he pulled back slightly, his lips still ghosting against Jimmy's as he spoke; “You should know by now that all I'm made of is terrible things.”

“I love the terrible,” answered Jimmy, who meant it profoundly. His own existence was just as stacked with stifled emotions and unpleasantry, but Thomas's nearness assuaged that with a comfort he hadn't known around anyone else.

“It won't get better,” Thomas cautioned, even as he laid his head down against the side of the nearest cot and reached for Jimmy's chin, lightly fingering the contour of it as he considered the image of his mutilated wrists in such a capacity. “I'll never have a clear head – a quiet, sane one like the rest of –“

“Don't want you changin', Thomas,” Jimmy cut him off. He shuffled himself into a position that mirrored Thomas's, also bringing the tips of his fingers to trace the shape of Thomas's unshaven face. “I don't want what _they_ want. I just want –“ The sentence caught in his throat as he realized what he had very nearly confessed, his own anxieties still a bit too much to be so free with such an admission. Instead, he sufficed to say, “I just want to break your excuses to leave.”

In the inky blue that the sinking sun had left in its wake, Thomas's lips grew heavy at the corners. “Won't stop you from goin', though,” he said morosely, his heart already cracking over a scenario that hadn't yet come to pass. The misery of the last year since Jimmy had been fired rekindled itself within him, made all the more unbearable by the acute pain he'd felt while Jimmy had just been in London in the last week.

“Just know that – that even if I go to the center of the earth and back...” Jimmy's forehead touched his in the darkness, both his hands cupping Thomas's face tenderly; “That it's your face that'll bring me back every time.”

Thomas breathed.

 


End file.
